


The Last Good Time

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:53:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26636161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: An AU in which Charles and Max meet before leaving for war.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	1. The Guy in the Chiffon Skirt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [L_M_Biggs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/L_M_Biggs/gifts).



> with some lyric inspiration from "Don't threaten me with a good time"

**New York City 1950**

“I should probably introduce myself,” the voice broke through his hazy, glitter flecked, champagne thoughts, bold but with a sing-song sweetness. 

Confusion shone in his Atlantic eyes and Charles Emerson Winchester III knew it. 

“You’ve been watching me all night. Don’t you at least want a name for your fantasies?”

“You responded plenty well to ‘mine own,’” Charles returned. 

“Wow. That’s a hell of an accent,” he turned the insignia on his collar to read it proper. “Major.” 

“Boston.”

“Massachusetts?” 

“Are there others?”

The pretty creature came closer, stood with Charles’ knee between his knees, skirt riding up, brushing over his lap like a warm tide. The muscles in his abdomen clenched. The action was involuntary - stronger than anything he’d ever felt for anyone, too. “Beats me, beautiful.”

From somewhere far away, the music crashed over them, cresting like waves. Bodies moved and swayed under irregular light. Alcohol fumes, smoke, and shouted conversation formed an almost visible haze over the dance floor - dragonfly gold, as multi-faceted as that water-skimmer’s eye - and, head tilted back, Charles couldn’t help but find it beautiful - if in a depraved sort of way. 

A beleaguered server, scrabbling like a combat medic on a beach under fire, wobbled through, knocking against them, pitching the man he had been watching (he’d been perfectly correct about that) against him, his mouth coming to rest in the crook of his neck. His voice licked against Charles’ ear like flame. “You gonna introduce yourself or what? You’re making me work really hard to hear your pretty voice, y’know.” 

“It was my understanding,” he slipped an arm around the narrow waist as if to brace him, but mostly to keep him in place, “that  _ you _ were, ah, making the introductions.” The skirt, he was delighted to see, was bound - all goldenrod yellow and chocolate cinnamon - with a silky ribbon that formed, in back, a floppy bow. His fingers played with it, wondering if one good yank would cause it to fall. 

Smacking his hand away from the bow, the man in the skirt with paste gems in his hair took Charles’ hand in a surprisingly strong grip. “Corporal Maxwell Q. Klinger. You outrank me, sir, so I guess you can call me yours, too, if you really want.” 

He really did. 

“Doctor Charles Emerson Winchester III,” Charles said in turn. But he hoped this Corporal Klinger would call him “beautiful,” again. The man already knew he was a Major, so he went with the title of which he was actually proud. 

“Doctor, huh? Trying to impress me, Major?” Klinger teased. 

“Only if it is working.” 

“Before you even opened your mouth.” 

To his surprise, Charles blushed - the color especially pretty given the hue of the lights. “I should apologize for… staring… that way. I consider myself a gentleman.”  _ But I have never seen anything like you.  _

“Lucky for you, I’m not a lady. I liked it fine.”

Long fingers splayed over his back. “This unique ensemble of yours…”

“You like it? I made it myself.” 

_ Delicious _ . “And would you, Corporal, darling, allow me to, ah, see it in greater detail, yet?”  _ It and whatever lies beneath it?  _

“Sure thing, Major.” He slid off of his knee like silk, like sin, then chuckled as Charles tried to follow and swayed. 

“I am, ah, usually quite capable of standing without all of this.” 

“Just lean on me, Major baby. I got you - and I’m not letting go.” 

_ Hmmm. Maybe there are better - sweeter - things than “beautiful,” after all.  _


	2. Snow Prints

Klinger led; Charles experienced the walk as troughs and crests of sensation: the lightening and darkening as they passed through the club and through a hallway, the change in temperature as they crashed through a door and into the night. As they walked, Charles anchored his long fingers in the fabric of Maxwell’s skirt. Klinger tapped between his knuckles. “Ease up or my skirt will pill.” 

There was no part of Charles that wished to loosen his hold on this laughing-mouthed, sunflower-bright creature he’d found, but he settled for hooking their arms, pushing Max’s suit jacket (vented in back - adorable, such detail!) away from a wrist so that he could caress it, making silent promises with his touch. 

Under their feet, silvery snow crunched. Looking back, Charles saw the bulky tread of his boots beside deer-light prints made by dance flats and he stopped abruptly, the force of terminated motion swinging Klinger around to face him. Dark eyes flicked up and Max smiled up into his face. “What’s the matter, beautiful? If you’re getting cold feet, it’s probably just the snow.” 

“I merely wanted to look at you.”

“Look at me inside where it’s warm.” 

But the drunken, tender parts of Charles would not be put off; he framed the slighter man’s hips with his hands to prove that which he’d been imagining. “I can nearly encircle your waist with my hands.”

“Years of corsets. Let me get you out of the snow, huh?”

Charles bent to kiss the snowflakes out of his dark lashes, to lay a trail of kisses down his cheeks. When he was done, Klinger’s face was turned up to search for (to  _ beg _ for) his mouth, his eyes helpless with gratitude. “I’ve never been kissed like that before,” he whispered, breath visible in the cold. 

“I know. It was an error that was very much in need of correcting.” Then he slipped out of his jacket and draped it over Klinger’s shoulders. 

“The hem will drag and get wet,” the Corporal cautioned him. 

“It will dry.”  _ But I will never, not as long as I live, forget the sight of  _ **_you_ ** _ in my coat.  _


	3. The Prettiest Heist

That his companion was as clever as he was lovely startled Charles into charmed laughter when Klinger picked the loading dock door of a fashion warehouse down the block from the club. 

“I do it all the time back home,” he assured Charles. “It’s how I get pattern ideas.”

Charles raised an eyebrow. “And materials?”

Klinger shoved him. “Hey! No! I’m not fancy like you, but I don’t steal.” Well, not since he’d been a kid; in those days, he hadn’t been above filching a snack from the local fruit stand … or a comic book from the corner store. 

And this noble, ranking, educated man with his arm at his waist - wasn’t that his prettiest heist of all? Maxwell hadn’t thought for a minute that it would work, walking across that dance floor and putting himself out there. He sewed constantly; it wasn’t like he couldn’t recognize quality. Charles was it; his coat even  _ smelled  _ expensive. Klinger would have bet it had been kept on a cedar hanger, brushed clean with the kind of soft bristles used to stroke horseflesh to a shine. 

And, sure, his light-fingered victory had been helped on its merry way by a drink or ten… his Major was long past the gentle kind of drunk that left you passed out in a ditch.  _ Lucky for you, sir, you got me. Wherever you decide to crash, I’m going to make sure you stay warm.  _

As he transformed a corner of the cavernous room by laying down two sorting tables as a runway, Klinger thought about the previous quip. “You worried about your wallet being with me, Major?” 

Charles frowned. “Was I demoted? There was more to it than that.”

Klinger stood before him again, ignoring but not oblivious to the hands that eagerly settled on his waist, cupped his ass, slid over his thighs. “Major baby,” he amended. “C’mon, you’re not worried are you? I might be from the wrong side of Toledo, but I did let you hold my purse.” 

“I trust you. You cannot know it, of course, but I’ve never done anything like this before. Only someone as breathtaking as you,”  _ with specks of glittering confetti flashing like homesick stars in your hair _ , “could ever have gotten me here.” 

Klinger grinned. “Keep talking pretty like that and I won’t say a thing about all the liberties you’re taking.” 

“I will invent new words just for the flash of your throat as you breathe, the way your eyes can be dark and bright at once… the way you feel in my arms.” 

“I promised you fashion, first. Gimme five minutes and I bet I make your head spin.” 

_ Way to keep your word Corporal, darling,  _ Charles thought when his newfound companion paraded down the runway in borrowed finery. 

He would never (partially because of the champagne, partially because of the speed at which Klinger changed and reappeared) be ever to account for everything he saw (and hungrily reached out to touch) but glittering fabric spun when Klinger turned, arched up to shiver across his belt buckle. 

There were gauzy summer silks in the color of gourmet ice, sunset colors on Klinger’s dark shoulders. There were sin-tight jeans cut low on his back, where Charles dreamed of seeing his name tattooed, ink shining wetly, even unto the Roman numeral. Heavy winter skirts made the sweet body beneath them look so frail that Charles stood to bundle it to him; cashmere scarves curled with jealousy when they realized they just couldn’t compete with the softness of Klinger’s skin. 

Appearing in a coastal blue with seafoam wrap, Klinger took five in Charles’ lap, lounging, laughing at his stunned eyes. “I woulda bet money you couldn’t whistle, Major.”

Charles kissed possessive patterns into his neck, feeling beautiful by association and proximity. “I am capable. I, ah, typically refrain.” 

“Bet you refrain from getting this hard anywhere but your bedroom with the door locked, too.” He ground against him, sampling. 

_ Not just locked, but bolted.  _ He did live with Honoria. “You would win that bet. Having enflamed me to such a state with all this dressing and undressing, is it too much to hope that you intend to do something about it?” 

It was the prettiest version of “please fuck me” that Klinger had ever heard. “Sure. Come with me.” 

Charles followed him to the hideaway he had used to change. The floor was now swimming in discarded clothing; it looked like something created by a bowerbird on dexies.  _ Oh, Winchester,  _ he thought _ , you are in so far over your head _ … and he was ecstatic. 

“One more costume change,” Klinger said, helping him down into the slippery pile. “I promise you’ll like it.” 

Charles would have begged him to hurry, but somehow Klinger was back before he had lost his boots… in a wedding gown. 

“Oh, darling…” Still on his knees, he carded his hands through reams of shining white. Then realization hit him. “White?”

“I’m entitled.”

_ Please. Oh, God,  _ **_please_ ** . “Am I correct in understanding that you have, ah, that you are,” he steadied himself, tried again. “You wish to bestow this honor on  _ me _ ?” He had never liked his looks, but Klinger made him feel every inch the eager, handsome groom. 

Those wide, beseeching eyes, of a color Klinger had never seen but very much wanted to wear close to his skin, were extremely flattering. Unsure of what to do in the face of them, Klinger touched his face, said, trying to tease, not quite carrying it off, “You’ll treat me right, won’t you, Major? You’re a doctor, so you won’t be too scared to show me the ropes, right?”

“Maxwell, I will  _ worship you. _ ”

And there on the floor, on an impromptu mattress of sateen, silk, chiffon, liben, and lace - Charles Emerson Winchester III kept his word. 


	4. Borrowed Finery

“Do you plan on continuing to make that noise, or would you like to stop long enough to allow me to kiss you?”

“Shh, Major baby. I’m  _ memorizing _ .” Maxwell was due to ship out in seventeen hours; he wanted something to think of when he had to try to go to sleep in some army tent clear across the world. 

“I would be delighted to provide you with more memories if you would trouble yourself to emerge from these ones.”

Max’s eyes shot open. “There’s  _ more _ ?” Coming closer, he draped himself - spine sinuous as a mink’s, as a cat who had historically hunted minks and learned the energetic grace, the twist and curve of them - over Charles. “You can do more stuff?”

The surgeon laughed, sobered (a little) by the thrill of orgasm (Klinger’s more than his own - which had come in response to seeing that beauty cry out in his arms) and kissed the man’s nose. “I can, darling.”

“They teach you that stuff in doctor school?”

Charles laughed harder. “Not precisely. Though if I ever had a patient who looked like you, I am sure all professionalism would abandon me in a trice. I trust you felt, ah, all that you had hoped to feel?” 

“And then some.” He rubbed over his throat. “Think I mighta hurt myself yellin’ for you.”

Charles kissed over the abused flesh, made Max sigh. “That’s real good, Major baby. What kind of doctor are you anyway?” 

“The kind who is smitten with you… who would have  _ specialized in you _ if he had known it was possible.” 

“Be serious.”

“Stop kissing you?”

“Has anybody  _ ever _ told you that? You’ve got a great mouth,” he angled his head to get that mouth where he wanted it. “A great voice… great hands…” 

Charles pressed a hand to his chest, rested it over his heart. “I am a thoracic surgeon, Maxwell. Hearts and lungs.”

“Fancy.”

“Yes. Fancy enough, at least, for this.” He swept a fur coat out of the pile and placed it around the Corporal’s naked shoulders. 

“Major, you can’t steal a fur!” Charles opened his wallet and merrily scattered a pile of not-so small bills about. 

Klinger gaped. “It isn’t worth that much.”

Charles kissed him. “You are.” 

What he failed to confide was that he meant the cash to pay for the mess they’d made… and for the wedding gown. He might be forced to turn it into handkerchiefs to make it less conspicuous… but he  _ was  _ keeping it. 


	5. The Last Good Time

It was the middle of the night when they left the warehouse and they made a few false starts as Charles tried to remember precisely where he’d left the hotel. Warm in a fur - a  _ real  _ fur! - Klinger kept his fingers in the taller man’s belt loop and helped him look. 

One of their detours on the hunt for a hide-and-seek hotel led them through the baking district, where trucks were pumping flour and sugar into storage vats. Sugar crystals hung in the night air to dust their lashes, their clothes. Charles pulled his new love into an alley. “You were delicious before,” he said, brushing this unexpected sweet-fall from his dark hair, “but I really cannot be expected to resist this...” 

Klinger leaned his head back to let him lick the crystal dust from his neck, from the bright corners of his mouth. 

_ You are candy dissolved in champagne, Max, and the memory of the taste of you will be with me every night that the snow looks like spilled sugar on the ground for the rest of my life.  _

“You’re too high class for making out in an alley, Major,” Klinger teased him. “Come on. Let’s find someplace warm to tangle up.” He winked. “I’ll let you tell me a bedtime story that keeps me up all night.”

“Mmm. The one where you make all of my dreams come true and give me plenty of material for new ones?” 

“That’s the one. Come on now, sugar love, let’s find that hotel.” 

They never did, but Charles gave up and picked an entirely new one, saying that he could afford it. 

“What about your luggage?” 

“I paid to have it sent to the ship before I went out. It will find me. Don’t fret, darling. You’ll spoil our wedding night.” 

Klinger followed him to this new room - impressed not with his wealth, necessarily, but with the way wealth seemed to purchase freedom; no one gave them a second glance despite his costume. And Winchester  _ was _ high class all the way - opening doors for him (for  _ him _ , a guy in a skirt!) and taking his coat, draping a blanket over his shoulders until the room warmed. It wasn’t a real wedding night, but Max doubted his real one would be as nice. Temporary as their acquaintance had been, was clear that Charles (inexplicably) saw him as more than a good time. 

This was confirmed when he began to undress him (Charles  _ loved  _ playing with that ribbon) - but not for the reason Klinger had imagined. Easing him down onto a blanket that probably cost more than his rent, Charles began to locate and root out every speck of tension carried in his body, dissolving pain. And he kissed every place that gave up its burdens. 

“Reviewing your anatomy before you ship out, sir?”

Humming, Charles listed each muscle that he caressed, the names as nonsensical to Klinger as the language that aliens spoke on the moon… but that  _ voice… _ He moaned in a pleasing counterpoint to all that humming. “This really shouldn’t be sexy, you know,” he teased. 

“Would it help if I had my white coat?”

Klinger shot him a scandalized look over one shoulder. How had he known!? “You wanna play a little doctor with me, Dr. Winchester?” 

“I can tell at a glance that you are in perfect health and perfect beauty.”

“The damn Draft Board agrees with you on the first one.” 

“You expressed a concern to them? Something you wish me to look over?” 

“I’m a poor kid from Toledo - if you’re offering, I should probably let you check me out top to bottom. I couldn’t afford you for real.” 

“You  _ were _ a poor kid from Toledo,” Charles corrected. “Now, you are mine to spoil and treasure and adore.”

Klinger could almost believe it after having those long fingers caress him. “I’ve never had a massage before, Major.” 

“I would have been jealous of the masseuse if you had,” Charles admitted easily - soberly, now, too, though his bedmate couldn’t know it. “Of anyone, really, who has seen you moving like a cat…” 

Klinger chuckled, thinking he was making fun. “A scaredy cat, maybe.”

Charles knew he was thinking of the sea and the lands beyond it. He kissed him gently. “Not tonight beautiful. Don’t think of it. Tonight you’re warm and safe and all mine.”  _ And I would fall asleep inside of you if I could, just to be joined a bit longer, just to memorize the feel of you around me…  _

Almost as if he read his thoughts, Klinger traced the line of his cheek and said, “Make me yours?” 

“Max? Are you asking?” 

The younger man nodded. “I don’t know if I’d ever want to with anyone else. But I want it with you. Tonight with you.” He looked at him with wide eyes. “You can make it good for me, right? So, it won’t hurt too much?” 

“Maxwell, I would break every joint in my fingers before I hurt you.” 

And wasn’t it proper, really? A bridal night on the eve of war? Not that anyone had ever given the bride a rifle, Charles guessed. But while he could not spare his love the war and its weapons, could not extract Klinger from the service, he could do this. 

And he intended to do it properly. 

“Wait for me a moment, darling?” he asked the lithe, lovely creature snuggled into the bed. He wished he had undertaken this adventure sober.  _ But I never would have dared approach you _ . Now he knew so little of his new beloved - and yet so much. 

_ I wish I knew what traditions and customs would comfort you and bind us…  _ He resolved to do the best he could with what he had. The bar had candles stored beneath it in the event of a power outage; Charles lit them all. 

In that dappled light, the Major knelt and removed the college ring from his hand with its Harvard seal, slipped it on Maxwell’s slender finger. “Be mine, sweet girl?” 

Maxwell trembled, overwhelmed.  _ This doesn’t feel like a game anymore.. _ . “You don’t have to do all this, Major,” he gestured at the candles, the heavy ring on his hand. “I’m not worth it.” 

Charles remained on his knees, kissed him as if they were in a church, beheld by God and loving eyes. “Quite right. Beloved, you are worth so much more.” 

Who was Maxwell Klinger - immigrant kid, working class - to argue with a Winchester? 

Standing, the Major eased Max onto his back and lay over him, mapping a line from his mouth to his throat. Max clenched his eyes shut as he slid lower, coaxing his trembling legs open. 

“You are sure, Max?” 

“Yes.” But he sat up to watch him, teetering between nervousness and excitement. 

Charles decided to split his concentration a bit. His tongue teased over Max’s inner thigh, laying down meandering pleasure trails, making his cock jump. His fingers, meanwhile, were eased in slowly, his eyes flicking up to read the younger man’s face. “Am I hurting you, love?” 

“No.” Klinger’s voice wavered and he’d been sliding back down throughout, to Charles’ amusement. 

“You need not hold yourself up. Just tell me to stop if you wish me to.”

“Why would  _ anyone! _ ?” 

Charles chuckled; Klinger had been the steadier one of their duo all night ( _ Charles  _ certainly couldn’t have managed an impromptu runway… even if someone had wished to see him on one, an idea he found it impossible to entertain) but he sounded drunk now… addicted to the slow, searching motions of his fingers. 

What he was searching  _ for _ … well, that could wait. He wanted to cherish his pretty Maxwell through slow touch… then wreck him. The younger man was already moving for him, pushing back in answer to the gentle rhythm Charles had established, his mouth still playing counterpoint, still teasing. 

“You cannot know how beautiful you are,” he whispered into warm, trembling skin. “If someone painted you this way, museums of the world would sell off their treasures to bid for the image of your form.”  _ And it is mine, forever, sealed under the domes of my eyes _ . 

Klinger panted, moaned. “How can you talk so pretty and kiss me  _ there _ at the same time!?” 

The frustration - the reckless  _ want  _ \- in his voice thrilled Charles; Max made no attempt to hide how much Charles affected him, how much he wanted more. “Shh, shh.” He slowed his ministrations, soothed Max back down to trembling anticipation and claimed his mouth. Klinger made the kiss a desperate one - begging without even knowing what he was asking  _ for _ . Charles held onto the feel of that small, warm mouth as he resumed his work — and he smiled when he won his first choked gasp. 

_ I told you there was more _ . 

“Major!?”

“Are you okay, pet?” He curled his fingers just a little, made his touch  _ so light  _ \- and Klinger still almost sat up. Charles had never pleased so truly sensitive a lover; barely moving, he won the most piteously beautiful whines he’d ever heard. He wanted to encourage Max, to call him “good girl,” and “oh my sweet soldier” both, because wasn’t he? But he had to make sure he was okay first.

Max writhed, trying -  _ needing -  _ to feel it again, that bone-deep electricity that had been a secret to him until Charles had started this. “Is it supposed to feel like that?” he whispered, worried something was wrong. Maybe he was some kind of degenerate (the dresses had won him such comments before); surely this amount of trembling desire wasn’t  _ normal _ , was it? 

“Like what?” Charles didn’t sound worried about his metamorphosis into a sex fiend… just very satisfied. 

“It’s so much, Major!” 

“Too much? We can stop.” 

Klinger experienced a moment of real and actual anguish. “I… I want  _ more _ though.” He searched Charles’ face - god those eyes! “Is that wrong?” 

Charles smiled and kissed him. “No. And nothing you want or ask of me could ever be wrong, Maxwell.”

There was one reassurance he still wanted. “You… you’re gonna do what you said, right? All the way?” 

“Yes. I can finish you with my fingers if you wish it though.”

Klinger swallowed. “Baby, you could finish me by looking in my eyes and reading the phone book, I think, but I’d rather you didn’t.”

Charles caressed him again; the suddenness made Max draw his legs in, made his abdomen tighten. “Such flattery, my beautiful girl?”

Max keened. “Just the truth.” 

“Good girl. Good, good,  _ exquisite _ girl.”

Klinger’s feet drummed, slipping in sheets as he tried to anchor himself. “I want to be so good for you, sir.” He broke off to gasp again, to twist his body to chase a retreating sensation. “Please, Charles!” 

He meant to wait. But the sound of his name… Max  _ needed  _ him. What he needed…  _ You, forever. My name in your mouth every single night for the rest of my life.  _

He stood, hungrily outlined those lips - Max was still calling for him as they kissed - “Charles, oh Charles!” - and undid his belt. Max reached up and found his hands, guided him out.

_ You would get me ready with your mouth,  _ Charles realized.  _ You wouldn’t even close your eyes; they would beg me - hurry, Major! - and they would undo me, too.  _ Knowing he couldn’t endure that warm sweetness, those eyes looking up at him, he completed the preparations himself. When he aligned them, Max nearly vibrated with joy. 

“I won’t hurt you, darling,” he promised Max as the tip eased in. 

Max’s eyes shot open, begging, encouraging just as Charles had known they would. “Keep going, Major baby.”

God, he wanted to. He wanted to keep going until they were joined… and  _ never leave _ . But Max was tight and he had meant his reassurances; those pretty cries Max was making weren’t to know anything of pain - not even for a second, not ever. So he waited until Max pressed down on him, steadied the smaller man’s hips because the little arching movements he made were going to finish him for sure, and pushed again. “My brave one,” he murmured. “My brave soldier…” 

“Oooh…” Max’s voice was lilting and his eyes were incredibly wide, moving from Charles’ face to the place where they were joined together. One more motion and he was inside, his sighs mingling with Klinger’s praise. 

Charles kept himself from moving as long as he could, letting Max adjust to being stretched around him, savoring, memorizing the feel of him. But when Max gripped his shoulders and  _ begged _ , he answered before he even knew what he was doing. 

Each thrust won him a soft, happy whine. When he found the place he’d been caressing to prepare Max, however, the timbre of those noises changed. “Charles!” 

“Open your eyes, Maxwell. Look at me. Look at what you do to me, beloved.”  _ Dearly beloved _ . He caught sight of his ring on Klinger’s left hand and felt his stomach bottom out.  _ My husband _ . He thought of the wedding gown balled up under his coat, the way he’d bundled the slippery, shimmery folds up over Max’s hips, the way he’d lifted him in his arms to carry him over a nonexistent threshold.  _ My wife. My everything _ . 

It took real effort to make his eyelids stop fluttering. Forcing his eyes open, Maxwell stared into Charles eyes and swore he could see clear through to his heart - saw himself there. He reached up to stroke his face. 

“Please, Maxwell, never let another have you like this. Please be only mine.”

It was a mad ask on a party night in a city to which neither of them belonged, but Maxwell froze at the sound of that voice doing the asking. Down to the marrow in the heart of his bones, at the center of the heart that fed those bones with blood, Max knew he meant it. 

_ Please _ , those eyes were still begging.  _ Promise me, beloved. Belong to me and only me as I belong to you.  _

“Yes,” he swore. 

_ I now pronounce you one. What has here been joined, let no man put asunder.  _

The next day, Charles Emerson Winchester III left for Tokyo. Maxwell Q. Klinger, lips bright despite an uncharacteristic lack of lip gloss, sailed for Korea. 


	6. More lost than the moon in winter

**February**

Charles had been in Tokyo for one month. He had known the delights of fresh octopus drawn from the sea, sake poured warm into tiny, ornate glasses. He had also known what it was to miss someone with every second breath. His lungs _ached_ . He’d listened to them with his own stethoscope and they weren’t _really_ bleeding… but the cut there, invisible to others, so tangible to the proud surgeon, bore a name. At night, he returned to his quarters - spare, if comfortable - and whispered his beloved’s name, telling his dreams and hopes and terrors to a man he’d held for just one night. 

**March**

In the second month, the ache did not leave. However, he no longer heard Max’s name only within his own mind. When rumors of a man trying to get out by wearing dresses reached his ears, Charles couldn’t stop grinning. “That’s my husband!” Charles wanted to tell the bragging, laughing Generals that carried tales of Max’s mad exploits. Of course, the ceremony had mostly been in his mind… but he _hoped_ anyway. 

“I am so proud of him,” he wrote to Honoria. “My clever little Corporal!” At this stage, he yet hoped that his family would rescue him. In turn, he would find a way to rescue Max, even if he had to smuggle him out in an Oriental rug. If Max could get sent home on his own, Charles would applaud the scheme that got him out of Asia and away from the fighting. 

What he could not seem to discover was where Max was stationed. The rumors Charles heard from Generals (their ailments too often arising from age rather than battle) were often third hand at best - and the men who shared them were far more concerned with getting their hands on drugs that promised increased virility than they were with answering questions Charles strove to keep subtle. 

Mostly he heard that the infamous section eight seeker was a pretty tease — and Charles had never loved a word more. Max hadn’t been a tease with _him_ so maybe… just maybe… that meant he didn’t want to give himself away lightly. (The rational part of Charles knew that it probably meant that Klinger _knew_ the Generals wouldn’t keep their word to release him - so why barter something for nothing? 

_Continue to be pretty, my darling,_ Charles thought. _And a tease. I promise to renew and reward you for every night you spend alone._

**April**

In the third month of his exile - with his family reaching out to rescue his worthless, sniveling cousin but leaving him very much in place - Charles made a mistake. 

Maybe he looked once too often at the pale band where his ring had rested. More than once, Charles had been tempted to purchase a ring to replace the one he’d given Max, but the romantic in him (a part of him that almost no one knew about) resisted. He considered himself married. His wedding cake had been the white sugar he’d licked from Max’s lips in the alley. His service had been the sacred mix of light and shadow that had made Maxwell a thing to kneel before. They had drunk sighs and kisses from each other’s mouths - was that not a better communion than a sip of wine? But if a ring ever did rest there, he wanted Maxwell to ease it home. Anything else would just feel like a lie. 

Maybe he failed to keep his excitement from his eyes when another Klinger caper got bandied about. Maybe he looked just a little bit too much like a man in love. 

All Charles knew was that when General Bradley Barker threw another of his famous soirées (Klinger was his favorite date), his CO, Colonel Horace Baldwin, refused to allow Charles to go as their representative. Worse still, he put Charles on ER duty that night to make sure he was occupied. “And Cinderella’s a _Western_ fairytale, Charles, so don’t think any fairy godmother will be along to whisk you away, either,” the man had said as he’d left.

Charles hadn’t flinched; he wasn’t giving Baldwin that type of satisfaction. But he had registered the key word in the phrase. So, the Colonel’s antagonism had a root, did it? Charles almost laughed to think about it. He’d faced a far more hateful and far more powerful nemesis in his own father; Baldwin, at least, could not condemn himself to those old tortures, no matter how fitting he might think them for someone of Charles’ make. 

_The thing that they hate me for… it is that “broken” part of me that gave me Maxwell. How can I think myself deviant, corrupted, or abnormal if it won me the purity of him - even for a few hours?_ Reaching into his pocket, he brushed the handkerchief there. White silk. It sent a pure white blaze of desire through him as he remembered unlacing the back, kissing between each and every one of the silken ties. 

Let Baldwin hate him. Let his father hate him. Let Max be mere miles away and yet as close as the lonely winter moon. _I’ll find my way back to you, beautiful._ He passed the night thinking about Maxwell dancing. 

**May**

In May, Charles began to lose hope of being rescued by his family. Re-reading Honoria’s letters, he saw that she had been trying to bank those hopes all along (gently - and that made it worse because that wasn’t really her nature, especially with  _ him _ ) and he wrote her, now, that he understood.  _ Better a dead war hero than a living mistake, eh _ ? He would live just to spite them. Well, to spite them and to have Maxwell back in his arms.

But as his hopes withered, his doubts increased. 

Could Max want him? They had both been drunk. 

_ But I called you “beloved.” Max, I meant it.  _

_ I still love you.  _

He pictured that small, lovely form, pictured Max’s sweet smile.  _ Chin up, Major baby _ , his vision said - and he did. 

He also bought a journal. He couldn’t send Max a letter - but he could write to him. He told him about his Tokyo days, his wishes for his health, the albums he bought, the nights he dreamed about him. And Charles promised himself that he would read these words to him one day. 


	7. The Good Man from Uijeongbu

**June**

In June, Charles met a good man. 

Lt. Colonel Henry Blake had - miraculously - survived being shot down over the sea of Japan and was now recovering at Tokyo General under Charles’ care. The two quickly became fast friends - and no one was more taken aback by this development than Charles! Perhaps it was because the other man was a doctor, too. Or, perhaps, Winchester armor had just never been effectively tested against Illinois happy-go-luckiness! Whatever the case, Winchester not only endured Henry’s fish tales from back home (and tales about nurse tails from life in camp) he came to look forward to them. 

**July**

Henry’s tenure at Tokyo General came to an end and he was preparing to return home. Before going, he invited Charles to toast his health (and his safety - he was very much going by  _ boat _ this time around, thank you!) and refused to take no for an answer. 

“I’ve been jawing your ear off for weeks - it’s time for you to set down some of the stuff you’ve been carrying, Winchester,” he insisted. 

Charles hadn’t been aware that his burdens were obvious, but Henry looked at him with a friend’s eyes, so he accepted and the two of them knocked back a magnum of champagne and were deep into matching bottles of cognac and Scotch. 

Charles paid - partly because he was the wealthy one in the friendship and money was (he too often felt) the one good thing he could offer anyone, partly because Blake was leaving and deserved a send off. 

But Henry opened his wallet halfway through the evening to at least try to chip in and Charles made a medically unclassifiable sound. Like fine wine or a complex aria, this muted cry contained subtle notes that included surprise, wonder, hope, loneliness… and joy. 

“Winchester?”

Charles was a young man, but Blake wasn’t ready to rule out aneurysm or cardiac episode. The Major’s eyes had gone downright strange. 

“I, ah, Henry… that… I know I have been drinking,”  _ and even sober he is never far from my thoughts…  _ “but may I be so forward as to inquire as to the provenance of that photograph?” 

That Max had tried to scheme  _ Generals _ , Charles knew. But a Lieutenant Colonel? Had his only friend in the Far East also been something of an unknown rival? 

Henry smiled that big, blinding grin of his. “That’s my kid Corporal at the 4077th! Cutie, isn’t he? You should see him in green!” 

_ You should see him in  _ **_nothing_ ** . 

Charles was a disciplined man. Switching from cognac to water, he steadied himself, and tried to make sense of the fact that he had been treating  _ for weeks  _ a man (a friend, he corrected, Henry was a friend) who had so recently seen the love of his life. Charles had fourteen thousand questions. 

But even though Henry was leaving, they were still both in the Army. It paid to be careful. 

What Charles didn’t know was that Henry Blake, though possessed of an authentic aww shucks grin and so lovably goofy that he sometimes tripped, laughing, over his sweet self, was far from stupid. Blake knew that his so-called kid Corporal (one of a pair he kept an eye on, though he’d never read  _ Klinger _ a bedtime story) was in love. He knew that Klinger tried to get to Tokyo every chance he got (and to Toledo with every breath). And here was Charles working  _ in Tokyo _ , his eyes - like lunar ice overlaid over veins of warm-running gold - the eyes of a man gone suddenly weak with longing. 

“I, ah, I’ve heard rumors about him,” Charles gestured at the photograph and Henry wondered if he had any idea that his fingers were trembling with the need to touch it. He swallowed, reminded himself that he had given lectures before the most eminent men in his profession. “They say he’s quite the, umm, tease.” 

Henry would have bet every bit of money he was taking home to his darling and shopping-addicted spouse that Dr. Charles Emerson Winchester III had never in his privileged life shaped his tongue to say  _ that _ word before.  _ Poor thing _ , Henry thought.  _ You’re worried about me and your boy. Gal? Corporal.  _ He didn’t want to spook Charles- the man looked as fragile as a broken sake cup mended with gold, what the Japanese called “kintsugi,” - so he tried to set him at ease. “Klinger? Nah. Klinger isn't a tease, he's just a scared kid. Terrified, really. Hell, he wears this too big ring on his ring finger and tells folks he's married to keep them away."

Doctors saw plenty of miraculous things. Hell, just keeping an eye on the borderland between life and death was a privileged post. Henry never got sick of seeing new life come into the world (he couldn’t wait to see his son!!) and he never stopped being sick when he had to bear witness to the way light retreated from a pair of dying eyes. But the transformation that overtook his aristocratic drinking companion at the mention of that ring… He silently willed the man to take a drink (he  _ needed  _ one) and tried to project the sun-warmed dandelion feeling Radar often sparked in him.  _ It’s okay, big fella. It’s oooo-kay.  _

He placed the picture in those long fingered hands so that Charles could take in the pink ruffles at Max’s throat, the dark hair adorned with flowers, the rifle (more ridiculous, somehow, than any feminine bit of garb Klinget fit to his slender, pretty frame), and the bridal white shoes. “Look at my little sad eyes,” he urged. “How could anyone get close enough to dance and not see he’s broken up?”

It was true. Max was looking out of the photo and into the camera with melancholy eyes.  _ Looking for me!? Missing me?!  _ Winchester did not pray as a rule, but he would have signed over his soul  _ and  _ his stock portfolio to make it true. 

Henry let the man look his fill. Radar had taught him the patience it took to calm a frightened animal; his own affinity for children and for medicine had taught him gentleness. “You know, Charles, Klinger and I got pretty close over here. I looked after him, you know? It’s why he gave me the picture - a funny little memento, y’know? Lorraine’s gonna getta kick out of it too! His waist is smaller than hers! Anyway, he’d tell me things, sometimes, you know? About the umm,” he lowered his voice, “the guy he got married to.” 

_ The.  _

_ Guy.  _

_ The  _ **_guy_ ** _!?  _

Henry hadn’t known it was possible to  _ soundlessly  _ whimper, but they updated those medical textbooks all the time. “H-henry?” 

“Yeah, Charles?” 

“If you would be so kind, and if it would not be straining the Corporal’s confidence over much, might I inquire as to what he, ah, said about this, ah, ‘guy?’” 

“Deal, but first you tell me something. It’s a real fur, isn’t it? That coat of his?” 

Charles reached into his pocket for his handkerchief and showed it to his friend; his shining eyes were proud. “Yes. And this was a real wedding gown once.”

Henry felt like cheering the way he’d cheered Army on against Navy, or his Fighting Illini back home. “Klinger told me you had the prettiest eyes,” he told him. “He’s on something of a mission to get cloth that color but he hasn’t found it yet.” 

_ Lace. Let him find it in lace.  _

“He told me you talk like a fancy book. That you like the symphony and know fashion. That you’ve got houses all over the world. That you’re too good for him but he wants you anyway.” 

Charles choked. “Henry, you  _ must _ believe me when I tell you that I would throw my fortune into the Sea of Japan for Max. It is he, entire, who is too good for me.” 

Seeing how deadly through-to-bone serious he was, Henry decided to share some truths of his own. He told Charles about his surrogate son, Radar O’Reilly, and his plans to build a fishing cabin so that he could still spend time with the kid stateside. “It’s a different kind of relationship,” he explained, “not like you and Max - but it’s special and I don’t wanna lose him. He’s my kid and I’m gonna look after him even if I hafta get papers drawn up for it.”

“Good for you, Henry,” Charles said and meant it, making a mental note to find a helpful lawyer (and divert the costs) and soon they were swapping admiring stories, infatuated husband to proud father.

Henry beamed, almost starry-eyed. “Those Corporals, right? They just get you here.” He thumped his heart. 

Charles laughed. “Yes. I thought my specialty was the heart, but he removed mine without even a local.”

“You  _ gotta _ tell me what he was wearing when you met him,” Henry urged. 

Charles proved Klinger right about his voice as he rhapsodized about a chocolate cinnamon ribbon. 

“He has ribbons and scarves above his bed now for decoration,” Henry told him. Ivy League man like you could get him tangled up no problem.”

Charles blushed. “Ivy League?” 

“Harvard ring. Looks great with the green I was telling you about.”

“You will make me jealous, Colonel. You’ve seen all his recent work and I have been living on memory.”  _ Memory of one night, no less.  _

Henry punched him in the shoulder - that gentle man-to-man gesture meant to shore up and offer support. “You don’t have to worry about me. Captain Pierce, maybe, but not me. 

“Oh?” 

“Every once in a while Hawkeye Pierce gets a wild hair and decides he wants to try and get Klinger to lift his skirts. He never succeeds, but he tries it every so often.”

Charles looked horrified. “A respected surgeon preying on a young man!? He should know better!”

Henry lifted a teasing eyebrow.

“I know. I  _ did _ marry him.”  _ Sort of.  _ And he would do so officially just as soon as he got close enough to propose. “Henry, Colonel Baldwin will fight me on it, but can you get me into your unit?”

“You  _ want _ to go to Korea?! It’s awful. Heat, cold, lice, bugs, bombs, snipers…”

“Yes. All of that - and the man I love.”

“ _ He  _ shouldn’t be there either with his lungs in the shape they are.”

Charles gripped the table edge. “His lungs?” 

Henry looked uncomfortable. “You don’t know?”

“Blake, do  _ not  _ spout confidentiality at me. That is my husband you’re speaking of! I am a  _ thoracic surgeon _ .” If something was wrong, there was very little that he couldn’t fix. If Max’s malady fell outside of his expertise, Charles vowed that he would learn. 

“If he’s yours, why don’t you know?”

“It was, ah, something of a whirlwind courtship. We left soon after for war. But Maxwell has told you we are married, yes?”

Henry nodded. 

“I have shown you the remnants of the dress. Please?” 

Henry laid out the details, was surprised when Charles gripped his hand. “Blake, please. Your superiors love you. Get me to that unit. I will put your children through medical school if you wish it, but get me there.” Autumn was around the corner. The idea of Maxwell facing dropping temperatures and an increase in disease without anyone to look after him made his palms sweat. 

Henry agreed. If he had not, he sensed that Charles would move Heaven and Earth to get to Uijeongbu - and that would leave Pierce, Burns, or McIntyre with a hernia surgery when he arrived. No one needed that. 

“It won’t be a cushy post like you’ve got here,” Blake warned him. 

“I do not care. Maxwell is there. That is enough.” 

Blake promised it would happen and Charles kissed him in gratitude- outdoing even Pierce. 

Blake drew back, laughing. “Klinger is one lucky gal... guy... Corporal… what do you call him?” 

Charles laughed and grinned. "Whatever he wishes. As for lucky… You have no idea, Colonel Blake. He is the good luck charm that has kept me alive here... and will hereafter.”

“You send me a new picture okay? A happy one.”

Charles shook his hand. “Blake?”

“Yeah?”

“Do  _ not _ tell your wife his waist is smaller than hers.” 


	8. Champagne, Cognac, and Army Green

Charles’ journey to the 4077th was harried to say the least. It began with a jeep, but the middle of the play was interrupted by gunfire, and he arrived on foot - blisters on his heels, dust on his hems, and his fingers clenched so tightly on white silk that he had to hope there was no surgery that night; they were sure to cramp. 

Henry had warned him - but the heat, the  _ smells _ , the dirt - his first look at the 4077th certainly didn’t turn his head. 

The second though… 

It was a low, startled sound that reached his symphony-trained ears… but he had gotten Maxwell to make that sound for him before (though the younger man’s legs had been around his waist at the time, pretty nylons patterned with blackbirds); he knew it now. 

“Major?” 

_ Beloved?  _ “Corporal?”  _ Darling _ ? The syllables were sweet, sweet, sweet on his tongue. 

“You must be our new surgeon,” said a bandy-legged Colonel with a fine cigar (probably meant to ward off the scents, Charles thought, proving that the man was worthy of his leadership post). “And it seems this is something of a reunion. Klinger, gal?”

Klinger’s eyes shined and his mouth worked, and a watching Hawkeye Pierce and BJ Hunnicutt traded wondering, amused looks. Putting Frank in traction for no reason had been fun; this looked to be good times enough, whatever it was, to last the whole war. 

Charles made his own introductions and was pleased beyond belief when the Colonel ordered Klinger to get him settled in the VIP tent. As soon as the door swung shut, he pressed his lithe, long-lost lover against a tent post and kissed him onto his knees. 

“You are yet mine?” 

Klinger held out his hand, the ring riding there padded to fit. “Never stopped belonging to you for a minute. Promised, didn’t I?” 

Moaning to remember what he had looked like and felt as he’d made that promise, Charles knelt with him, gathered him close, adored him with his eyes and his lips and his hands. “I had no right to ask. But if I had done less… Maxwell, you do understand how very much I love you?” 

“You came to _Korea_ , Major baby. Believe me, I know.” 

“And you think it will be safe here? You are among friends?”

“They know all about you. And I have my own tent.” 

Charles raised an eyebrow. 

“Had,” the young Corporal corrected gratefully, laughing. “Had.” 

Charles wanted to tell him that he would make it all official (as best he could given the legal system), but all the came out was, “I wish to see all the things you have created in my absence. I imagined them as I wrote to you.” 

“I never got any letters.” 

“I have them still. I did not know where to send them, but I would be most pleased to read them to you as I hold you in my arms.” 

“Loved your voice the very first time I heard it. I’m really gonna love dressing pretty for you again. But you know what I think I’m gonna like most?”

Charles smoothed his hair back from his eyes, matching sensation to treasured memory. “What is that my darling?” 

“That it can kinda be like coming home now. I mean, I know it’s still Korea. OR’s horrible and I’m still gonna be scared, but at night, we can pretend, right? That it’s normal? You gave me a real swell honeymoon. Think you can spot me the rest?” 

That he would desire it - the evening quiet, the comfort of closeness and the familiar rituals they would compose together, was all the Charles could have wished. “It shall be my pleasure and my privilege, Max.” 

“Welcome home, Charles.”

End! 


End file.
